Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky

Vladimir Eduardovich Nápravník (1869-1948), Petrograd 
Sotheby's London, The Russian Sale, 28 November 2006, lot 65
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Petrograd, Mir iskusstva, 1915, listed as no.101b on p.9 of the catalogue 
Petrograd, Dobychina Art Bureau, Vystavka risunkov i etyudov E.Lansere i M.Dobuzhinskago, 1915, listed as no.52 (Polyaki, Sanok) on p.16 of the catalogue

The present work is from is from a series executed by Dobuzhinsky in Galicia in February 1915. During the First World War Galicia was the northernmost province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and its key location on the Eastern front meant that it saw heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and the Central Powers. Having enlisted in the Red Cross as a medical orderly, Dobuzhinsky recorded military events and the various people he encountered on the Galician and Polish fronts. Soon after his return in March 1915, he exhibited these drawings twice in Petrograd, first at the Mir iskusstva exhibition in March and then at the joint summer exhibition with Evgeny Lanceray at the Dobychina Art Bureau.

Vladimir Nápravník was the son of Eduard Nápravník, a Czech conductor and composer, who settled in Russia and served as chief conductor of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre from 1869 until his death in 1916. He led the world premieres of many important 19th century Russian operas, including Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden, and Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades. Vladimir Nápravník acquired the present lot at or soon after the Mir iskusstva exhibition in March 1915, as he is recorded as loaning it in the catalogue of the Dobychina Art Bureau exhibition held several months later.